


Morning Bells

by gingersnapper



Series: Our Anthem Universe [2]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: AU - Our Anthem Universe, Alternate Universe, Childbirth, District 4 (Hunger Games), F/M, Pregnancy, Sexual Content, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:15:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25611934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingersnapper/pseuds/gingersnapper
Summary: Katniss decides that it’s time to move on from the fears that the war had left her with. Five years after the end of the rebellion, Katniss tells Peeta that she’s ready to have a baby, but the fears she had once never truly leave her.Set in the ‘Our Anthem’ universe - Katniss is a refugee from Hebridia (formerly Scotland) and the rebellion came to an end three years after the end of the Quarter Quell.
Relationships: Haymitch Abernathy/Effie Trinket, Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Series: Our Anthem Universe [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1848961
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	Morning Bells

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and thank you for reading this! As mentioned, this story is set in the ‘Our Anthem’ universe in which Katniss’s backstory is a little different. As much as I want to recommend reading the full story, I only recommend reading the prologue of ‘Our Anthem’ to understand the changes I made to Katniss’s character, but the story can stand on its own pretty well if you disregard my original characters. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Moderate sexual content, mild descriptions of childbirth.
> 
> Inspired by the song ‘For Baby (For Bobbie)’ by John Denver, although I based this off of Peter, Paul and Mary’s cover.

I didn’t want children once. There was a time when I didn’t want love, either, or even marriage but then all that changed when I fell in love with Peeta. We’d been married for about seven years now, give or take, with our anniversary on the 30th of May. It was February of 2168, four and a half years after the rebellion had come to an end on the tenth of August, 2163. The new Panem had existed for four and a half years, and the Hunger Games have been abolished for four and a half years. It had also been four and a half years since I carried a child in me that had hardly a chance to grow, let alone live, that was taken from me when the bombs went off outside of the President’s Mansion.

We were living in District Four, having officially moved from District Twelve a little under a year after the rebellion had come to an end and very shortly before the new senate elections. Peeta and I both decided that we weren’t going to run, and instead, moved to Four, where we would finally start the life that we wanted to live. We really did love District Twelve, but I wanted to be by the ocean and Peeta wanted to experience the world outside of the small section of the land that made up District Twelve. He’d started a bakery in Four, some three years ago now, and was very popular among the people of Four. A lot of people moved to Four while an equal amount of people in Four moved out of it and it was now very diverse.

We lived in a house that was just off of the boardwalk and it had a small fenced-in yard with sand, flowers and seating, and in the small backyard, we grew herbs and produce. The house itself had a very beachy feel and, like Cailean and Carolina’s house next door, had three bedrooms - two upstairs and one downstairs. We lived in the master bedroom upstairs. It wasn’t nearly as large as our home in Victors’ Village, nor was it as large as the homes in Four that were on Victors’ Island, where Annie lived with Killick and Ariel, but we loved our little seaside house.

I was helping Peeta in his bakery in Four one chilly February morning, helping him by tending to customers while he baked in the kitchen. He came out briefly when he heard the sound of a small child shouting about how much he loved sweets and my Peeta couldn’t resist offering the boy a free cookie. I smiled warmly, watching him... He loved children so much, yet I was so afraid of giving him any. He never pushed me, knowing how I felt, but every time I saw him with Killick or Ariel or any other children in Four, it made me long for one. Usually, I pushed the thought aside and selfishly declared that I would never want children in all my life, but on this particular day, I realised that maybe a child wouldn’t be so bad.

“It wouldn’t be, you’d be an excellent mother,” Carolina had said to me with a charming smile. “And you’ve seen how Peeta is with kids, I know he’d love your child so, so much. You both deserve it, you know.”

“I just can’t shake the fear that maybe... maybe the world isn’t safe. What if the Games come back?” I asked her, Cailean and Haymitch an evening or two after that day at the bakery.

“They ain’t,” Haymitch replied gruffly.

“It’s true, they banned them. Made them illegal and the new senate declared them a crime against humanity,” Carolina told me.

“Laws can just as easily be undone as they are done,” I told her.

“But they won’t, Katniss... the people would never allow that. Our children aren’t going to be pitted against each other and expected to kill each other in an arena. That’s all over and done with. We’re safe now, all of us, and so are our children,” said Carolina rather kindly, and I let out a sigh. “You’d be a really good mother, Katniss... Watching how you fought for everyone you love during the rebellion and then seeing how you care for everyone still even after, checking up on us, making sure we aren’t killing each other...” She glanced at her father and Cailean. “But you already know that. I think you want a child, too, otherwise you wouldn’t be thinking about it.”

She wasn’t wrong. A piece of me longed to hold my child in my arms, especially after losing the first. It had been almost five years since the rebellion came to an end so why was I still holding reservations? I knew how incredible of a father Peeta was going to be, so why wasn’t I giving him the greatest gift that I could possibly give him? I threw the idea of trying for a baby back and forth in my head for days after meeting with Carolina, Cailean and Haymitch, so much so that it distracted me from other things. I hadn’t even heard Peeta come up behind me when I was downstairs standing beside the kitchen looking through letters and wasn’t aware of his presence until he wrapped his arms around me from behind. I jumped slightly, dropping the letters onto the ground. “Peeta! You nearly frightened me!” I exclaimed at him, leaning into his arms as he chuckled somewhat seductively into my ear and nipped at it.

“That’s a first,” he said, probably thinking back to all the times I mocked him for having a loud step. “You’ve been very distracted lately, baby. So much so, you haven’t come in the last three days. What’s on your mind?” Baby. He called me ‘baby’. He never called me ‘baby’. Why did he call me ‘baby’?

“Nothing,” I told him. “It happens sometimes, hormone imbalances... Maybe I’m just tired.”

“Nightmares?” he asked me, and I shook my head. “What’s bothering you, honey?” He again nipped at my ear, stirring up a warmth inside of me that I had a feeling he was going to want a part of.

“Don’t worry about it, sometimes I just can’t achieve an orgasm and that’s okay,” I told him, diverting the conversation back to our intimacy.

“It’s not as fun when I come a minimum of three times a night and you don’t come at all. Let me help you come, baby,” he muttered into my ear, his hand sliding down my stomach and to my thigh, starting to slip under my skirt.

“If you say ‘come’ one more time, I’m going to kick you to Kingdom Come,” I playfully threatened, and he chuckled again.

“Oh, come on, Katniss... Surely, you’ve got a lot of pent up frustration. Maybe that’s why you’re tired.” His finger brushed against the fabric of my underpants, making contact with my folds underneath. I shivered slightly as Peeta nipped at my ear one final time before moving his kisses to my neck, his erection pressing into my lower back.

“Mmm, you surely know how to say ‘good morning’,” I told him, closing my eyes and stretching my neck to allow him more room.

“That feel good?” he asked me. “You’re so wet already, I can feel it through your panties.”

“Excuse me, my  _ what _ ?” I asked him, having never in our seven years of marriage heard him use that word.

“Panties. It’s what we call underwear here,” he replied. “Fine, I can feel how wet you are through your  _ underwear _ . I think we should let them dry a bit, don’t you think? Get them away from the wet source?” His thumbs hooked into the waistband of my underpants and started sliding them down.

“Mmm, Peeta... What if someone looks into the window?”

“All they’re gonna see is my back. They won’t have any idea that I’m fingering you.” As the words left his lips, I felt his fingers brushing against my freshly exposed folds, dipping his fingers in my wetness and running his finger up and down. I let out a gentle moan as he did this, then convulsed when I felt his fingers brush over my already swollen clitorus. I heard him chuckle again as he started to rub little circles on it with his thumb, I matching his strokes with moans and groans of pleasure. I gripped the counter beside me and squeezed my eyes shut as I felt his lips on my neck, his thumb on the most sensitive part of me and his fingers making their way to my opening, and I could feel the pressure building inside of me.

“Oh, god, Peeta... Peeta...” I moaned as I felt his finger push into me - first one, and then two, and then he shifted his hand so he could palm my clitoris instead as he slipped a third finger inside of me.

“Katniss,” he whispered into my ear. “Are you close?”

“Yes... oh god, yes... Don’t stop, Peeta...” I gasped, and as he pumped his three fingers into me and palmed my clitoris, I felt the pressure building up inside of me starting to reach its breaking point and I squeezed my legs together, shouting, “ _ Peeta, oh! _ ” at the top of my lungs as I felt my release and came into his hand, and then I collapsed backwards into his arms.

“That’s my girl,” he said, kissing the top of my head and wiping his hand clean on his trousers. Well, as clean as he could get them. “How was that, hmm? You had  _ a lot _ of pent up energy in you... might wanna go clean up your legs.”

“Pervert,” I said, teasing him, and he laughed. I turned my head up to look at him and he pressed his lips to mine, and I was about to break the kiss and tell him that it was my turn to pleasure him when the door opened and Haymitch walked in, finding myself in Peeta’s arms looking like a deflated balloon.

“You two got anythin’ better to do? I could hear y’all the way down the damn boardwalk!” he scolded us, and I turned bright red as Peeta laughed.

“Sorry, Haymitch,” he chuckled.

“I’m not,” I said, not even caring who heard me shouting Peeta’s name as I climaxed. Even though we’d been married for seven years and I confessed my feelings for him in the Quarter Quell, there were still people who were convinced our ‘star-crossed lovers’ bit was fake. Suddenly, my cheeks flushed when I realised that my underpants were still around my ankles and I quickly ducked down to pick them up, balling them into my hand and hoping Haymitch hadn’t noticed.

“What are you doing here anyway?” Peeta had asked him, hopefully diverting his attention away from me.

“Ran through my last bottle, came here for another one. Carolina won’t let me get anymore,” Haymitch replied.

“She’s a good daughter, wanting to keep her father alive,” I said, discreetly shoving my balled up underpants into Peeta’s pocket. We exchanged a quick glance and he smiled at me, teasing me with his eyes.

“I don’t drink much anymore, not when Ef’s around,” Haymitch replied. It was true - Haymitch didn’t drink so much when Effie was home, but she was in the Capitol representing the Capitol on the Senate for the week and wouldn’t be back for another few days. He only drank to cope with his empty bed because he missed her as much as Peeta and I missed each other when we were apart.

“Fair point, it’s in the dining room in the cabinet,” Peeta told him.

“You mean your home’s equivalent to my bedroom?” Haymitch spat at him, going into our dining room. The homes on the boardwalk of Four were pretty identical from the outside, with the yards of each showing the subtle differences of the families that lived in them. On the inside from the front door, each house had a living room on the right that led to a small full bathroom, a bedroom on the left (the bedroom that we were using as a dining room), a kitchen down the hall and a set of stairs, a laundry room behind the kitchen that had only a washing machine (we didn’t have a dryer - we just dried our clothes on a clothesline) and then a door that led into, technically, the ‘front’ yard however, the front of the house faced the boardwalk and the beach. Upstairs, there were four rooms - a sort of atrium from the stairs, a bedroom above the living room which was connected to the upstairs bathroom that also led into the atrium (this was the room that Peeta and I had claimed) and a third bedroom above the kitchen, which Peeta was currently using as his art studio. Most homes used either two or all three of the bedrooms, but we only used one. What other reason did we have for using the other two rooms as bedrooms when it was only the two of us? And we certainly had no family left to visit - Haymitch and Effie had a small cottage a couple of streets from the beach, Cailean - the only surviving blood relative between Peeta and myself - lived right next door with Carolina, Annie lived on Victors’ Island with Finnick’s mother, Killick and Ariel, and Gale and Johanna, if they ever did visit, would stay in the Justice Building. We truly had no reason to use the other bedrooms - unless we had children.

And then my mind drifted back to what had been disturbing me for the last few days. Children. Was I ready? I was still tossing the idea back and forth in my head when Peeta drew me from my thoughts. “Katniss, honey, Haymitch is trying to talk to you,” he told me, rubbing my shoulder with his hand. I looked up first at him, and then over at Haymitch, who was at the front door with his hand on the knob.

“Bye, sweetheart. Don’t fuck the boy’s brains out too much,” he said, opening the door and stepping out as my jaw dropped at the shock of his words. Peeta chuckled to himself, then looked at me.

“Can’t get your mind off of earlier?” he asked me with a sly grin on his face. I closed my jaw and gently cleared my throat.

“Something like that,” I replied, my voice laced with melancholy. The sly grin that Peeta had on his face fell.

“Katniss, what’s wrong? If it’s not sexual frustration, then what is it? I know there’s something you’re not telling me,” he asked me, and I turned my attention to him. “I know that look... you’re thinking about something and it’s bothering you.”

“I... I don’t really know how to word it...”

“What’s it about then? What’s on your mind?” He pulled out one of the stools that sat underneath the counter, where we sometimes had our meals, and I let out a sigh as I sat down. He sat down on the stool beside me, his eyes never leaving my face.

“I think...” I froze. How could I say this to him? Why was it so difficult for me? In the past, sometimes I’d just gone with the ‘rip off the bandage’ technique which usually left him speechless, and this was one of those times where I really didn’t want him to be speechless. I took his hand in mine as I tried to gather my thoughts. “What’s one thing in this world that you want more than anything?”

“I already have it, Katniss. A life with you.”

“Besides that.” It was his turn to fall silent as he thought of how best to word his next thoughts. He knew I hadn’t wanted children, especially not after the miscarriage. We hadn’t really talked about it in the last four and a half years, either. Maybe once or twice, but I always diverted the conversation to something else and Peeta took the hint that I didn’t want to talk about it.

“We... we don’t have to talk about it...” was all he managed to say, and I let out a sigh.

“I want to, Peeta... I think we should... talk about it...”

“I thought you didn’t want any after... you know.”

“I didn’t think I was ready. I was young and damaged, mourning the loss of so many loved ones... I just couldn’t. I didn’t have the space in my heart to love another, but...” I let out a sigh. “I think I want one. A baby.” His breath caught in his throat, his eyes wide as he realised what I was saying.

“We... we can wait, if you... if you want...”

“I don’t want to wait anymore, Peeta. I’m ready. I want to have a baby.”

“That...” He struggled for words, but he smiled as he choked on the words he was trying to speak. “That’s... that’s wonderful! That... Katniss, you have no idea how happy that makes me!” It was my turn to smile, loving the giddy look on the future father of my children’s face. He slid off the stool and pulled me into a tight hug and I squeezed him even tighter. A part of me was still terrified, worried that I might lose my children like I lost Prim and Calum and the unborn child I had lost before, but Carolina was right. The world was safe now, and now, I could finally give Peeta the children that he’s wanted for so long. “When do you want to start trying?”

“Well, now seems as good a time as any,” I told him, and he smiled, lifted me from the stool and cradled me in his arms, pressing a kiss against my lips before carrying me upstairs to our bedroom.

* * *

We’d started trying several times a day every day, both of us giddy and finding ourselves in our ‘honeymoon phase’, as Effie had worded it, all over again as we tried to create the third addition to our little family. It was pretty much guaranteed that we would make love in the morning when we awoke and in the evening when we went to bed, and everything in between varied day to day. Sometimes, it happened in the bakery. Sometimes, it happened in the living room. Once, we snuck into the shed in Haymitch and Effie’s backyard. But as much as we tried, every passing day, I still felt empty. In early May, three months after we’d started trying, I was in the upstairs bathroom checking a pregnancy test, hoping that the chemicals would make my urine turn purple, but it didn’t. It remained the same distasteful yellow colour and I let out a sigh as I heard a knock on the door and the door opened, catching Peeta’s reflection in the mirror behind me as he came in through the door that led to our bedroom.

“Anything?” he asked, a hopeful tone in his voice, and I shook my head. He wrapped his arms around me from behind and placed a gentle kiss on my temple. “We’ll get there... I promise we will.”

“Maybe I should just stop checking every week... I know it won’t help my chances of conceiving, but it’ll stop getting my hopes up,” I told him.

“If that’s what you wanna do, then I’m all for it. We’ll keep trying, in the meantime. That’s the fun part, isn’t it?” I couldn’t help but smile as I watched our reflection in the mirror, watching Peeta lovingly pressing his lips to my cheek and resting his chin on my shoulder as he met my eyes in the mirror.

“I love you,” I told him, watchin the smile creep onto his face.

“I love you, too,” he replied, drawing my face to his with his fingers and pressing his lips to mine. We kept trying, and I stopped checking, hoping that I would eventually start feeling the symptoms of pregnancy. What made it so hard was the fact that my period cycles had always been irregular from the time I first got them. I got them late - I was sixteen when I got it for the first time. It was during the Victory Tour and I had banished Peeta from the room while I figured out how to clean the mess I had left in the bed. Effie was surprised when I’d told her, seemingly shocked that I had gotten it so late, but she helped me in the way only a woman would know how.

Poor Effie couldn’t have children of her own. She was born something called intersex, meaning she was born with both a set of male and female genitalia. Her parents had decided that they wanted her to be female, so they’d done all kinds of surgeries to ensure that she would be raised female, but the one thing they couldn’t do was give her a uterus. She’d never had a period, but she still knew what to do anyway, probably from years of assisting the female tributes of Twelve. After Agnessa, Effie was the closest thing I had to a mother, and when she died in the bombing of Thirteen and after Effie had been freed from the Capitol, she sort of subconsciously became my mother.

In the now almost five years since the rebellion, in late July, Effie and I were having a cup of tea inside of my living room, both of us sitting beneath the ceiling fan trying to catch a spot of coolness from the oppressive heat outside. I had to put my teacup down on the table, fighting off the urge to gag from the smell of the milk. Around my period, I always got nauseous, so it didn’t surprise me, but Effie looked at me with a certain glint in her eye. “What?” I asked her.

“You look a little green, Katniss, dear. Are you all right?” she asked me in her motherly tone, and I shrugged.

“Heat, combined with my period looming around the corner...” I replied. “It’s the perfect recipe for nausea.”

“And your periods have been regular?”

“Effie, they’ve always been irregular. But they do seem a bit lighter than usual.” It wasn’t uncommon for the body to go through changes. Some months, my flow was heavier than others, and some months, I barely bled at all. She placed a hand on my back, her eyes gazing into mine with a motherly look to them.

“I think you should take another test, dear.” Another test? What was she suggesting?

“I... I didn’t want to take another until I showed signs... I’m not throwing up in the mornings, nor am I missing my periods. I don’t have any other symptoms.” I wiped my mouth on my sleeve, and Effie smiled warmly at me.

“Dear, you may not be throwing up, but you are more nauseous than usual, and your periods have been lighter... and your salivation has increased.” I’d raised my sleeve to wipe my mouth again - she was right, my salivation  _ had _ increased. Increased salivation was a very subtle, but still a sure symptom of pregnancy. I rushed upstairs to the bathroom and urinated into another cup, then let Effie in as I held up the chemical that would turn my urine purple if I was indeed pregnant. She smiled at me, then placed her hand over mine. “Together?” I nodded, and we dropped a couple of drops into the cup.

The test would take about a half hour to develop, so we went back downstairs and I nervously paced the living room floor. Suddenly, Effie’s timer that she had set - it was actually Peeta’s egg timer that he used for baking in the kitchen - had gone off, and my stomach dropped. “I... I can’t... I don’t want to be let down again...”

“Do you want me to check it, dear?” I nodded gently.

“If it’s negative, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know. Just dump it down the drain and don’t say anything about it.”

“Of course, dear.” She went upstairs, and I nervously fiddled with my hair while I waited for her to come back down. Suddenly, I heard her footsteps on the stairs, and she came into the room trying, but failing, to hide the big grin on her face. My hand jumped to my mouth when she pulled the cup out from behind her back - the urine inside of it was a deep shade of royal purple.

Positive. It was positive. I was having a baby.

I couldn’t stop the choke that erupted from the back of my throat and tears stung my eyes, and Effie pulled me into a tight motherly hug as tears of joy streamed down my face as I held the cup in my hands and admired the deep shade of royal purple. I was really beginning to love that colour.

Now, I had to think of a way to tell Peeta.

I wanted it to be special. I didn’t want to just show him the positive test in the cup, I wanted to find the most special and most creative way to tell him, but first, I needed to be seen by a doctor to confirm the test. Effie took me and the doctor confirmed that I was, indeed, pregnant, and based on a sample that they had taken during an internal examination, the foetus had been conceived between the 10th and the 15th of May, meaning the baby would be due sometime between the 10th and the 15th of February. It had been conceived right around the time I almost gave up hope of trying. This put me at nearly three months, and right around the corner was the fifth anniversary of Freedom Day, or the day that the rebellion had been won and Snow had fallen.

Freedom Day was the tenth of August, only two weeks away. I decided that Freedom Day was the day that I would tell Peeta. Freedom Day represented more than just the day that the rebellion had been won, it also represented hope for the future, as well as the day that Prim, Calum and Finnick had been lost. The day that they died would be the day that the future finally became clear, and also the day that two started on the path to becoming three. When dusk finally came and the fireworks were getting ready to be lit, I dragged Peeta away from the people who became our family - Annie, Killick, Ariel, Haymitch, Effie, Carolina and Cailean - and climbed with him on the rocks that jutted out into the ocean, keeping a firm eye on his prosthetic foot considering how dark it was, and the rocks were black.

“Is this where you want to watch the fireworks? Honey, it’s almost high tide. We’ll get wet!” he said to me, unable to conceal the smile on his face. I returned it, sitting down on the rock and giving his hand a firm tug.

“Shut up and sit down,” I told him, pulling him to sit beside me. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and kissed the side of my head every so often, and then the fireworks began. The sparks of red, gold, purple, blue and all kinds of colours lit up the sky and I couldn’t help but watch them with a childlike wonder on my face. They were so fascinating, and so beautiful. I knew the chemistry behind them, of course, but for a moment, I forgot all about them and lived right there in that moment. I felt my cheeks burning and turned to look at Peeta, who smiled at me when our eyes met. “Happy Freedom Day,” I whispered to him, and I smiled brightly. “I know a good way for us to celebrate.”

“Oh, do you now?” he said to me with a teasing tone in his voice, and I nodded.

“Well, maybe after I give you my own little surprise,” I told him, and I sat up on my knees and turned to face him. His face lit up with every firework that went off above our heads and I could see that he was somewhat perplexed. I was nervous now - this was the moment that I would tell him that we were going to have a baby. I gazed into his eyes, spilling my love for him into them from my own, and raised a hand to cup his cheek, and then turned to glance back at the group we’d left in the sand. Killick and Ariel were loving the fireworks, running around and shouting about how exciting and awesome they were. We both chuckled at their excitement before we met each other’s eyes again. “Aren’t those two something?”

“They really love the fireworks, don’t they?” Peeta asked me, the tone in his voice telling me that he detected something on my mind. I could see the longing for children in his eyes, and I smiled as the words that would grant his wish came to my mind.

“Imagine having one of your own,” I whispered to him, and I turned my attention to him, a subtle shock forming in his eyes. “Peeta,” I said, his face in both of my hands and our foreheads pressed together, the fireworks continuing to blast overhead and illuminate our faces. “You’re going to be a father.”

“Are you... We are... Really? ” he stuttered, and I laughed and pressed my lips to his nose.

“Yes, Peeta, I’m pregnant... about three months. I wanted to wait a little bit until I knew for sure and now I do,” I replied, and he pushed me down onto the rock and pressed his lips against mine, holding me tightly as he kissed me again and again and again. Hearing the news gave him so much joy and so laughed as he kissed my face again and again.

I started showing just a tiny bit a couple of weeks later - Peeta noticed it one morning after we had made love, and he led me to the mirror and wrapped his arms around me from behind. We were both naked, but that didn’t matter. I was confused by this gesture until he rested his hands on my stomach, just above my pelvis, when I noticed the small subtle bump that was beginning to form, a sign that our baby was growing inside of me. He moved his hands so I could place my own over it, feeling the warmth inside on my palm, I couldn’t stop the small smile from forming on my lips and he pressed a gentle kiss to my temple. It was real now, all of it.

That was when it started to scare me.

The further my pregnancy progressed, the more terrified and reserved I became. Peeta noticed it first, from moments when he tried to touch me and I recoiled in fear. I knew what pregnancy meant. I knew what happened at the end of it. I knew the dangers of pregnancy. I knew everything that could go wrong. I also knew how to handle most of the things that could go wrong, however, those things were easier to face when I was the one delivering the baby, not the one giving birth to it. One afternoon, I became tired of the constant cooing over me, of Peeta’s constant worried looks cast in my direction, of being around people who viewed me as sensitive and in a fragile state. I left the house with a noisily slammed door and went to the beach to clear my head, the salty air working its way up my nostrils and calming me. There was a storm brewing, dark clouds rolling in from the ocean, but I remained where I was, seated in the sand between the boardwalk behind me and the ocean roaring in front of me. I felt the first subtle drops of rain and I sighed, knowing that I shouldn’t stay in the rain for long. I looked around me, the beach, for the most part, deserted, except for a mother and her small child on the boardwalk.

_ I’ll walk in the rain by your side... _

They walked beneath an umbrella, the small child’s small hand laced with his mother’s as she made sure to keep him dry. The umbrella was mostly over his head, her right shoulder dampened from the rain.

_ I’ll cling to the warmth of your tiny hand... _

I turned my attention to my expanding abdomen. I was four months now, almost five. It was the end of September - now in the early days of Autumn, but still warm from the last rays of summer. My bump was a lot more prominent now, and I gently placed my hand down on it, as Peeta had done many times before. My thoughts fell on Annie, who sacrificed so much for her children. She didn’t want her children growing up knowing another man as their father, and after Finnick died, her mental state was so bad. But she recovered quickly, for the sake of her children. She lost Finnick, and so did Killick and Ariel, and she wasn’t going to let her children lose their mother, too.

_ I’ll do anything to keep you satisfied, _

_ I’ll love you more than anybody can... _

I thought back to my mother, Eilidh Fòlais. She was a woman with brilliant, beautifully vivid sunset orange hair, with eyes as green as the emerald grass of the islands of Hebridia, and a smile gracing her young and beautiful face. She used to sing to me songs of maidens fair and birdsongs, humming beautifully ancient Hebridean melodies to me as we sat in the grass over the cliffs that hovered over the ocean, I in her arms as she ran her fingers through my hair before the wind could catch it.

_ And the wind will whisper your name to you... _

_ Little birds will sing along in time... _

I thought back to Agnessa, who wasn’t exactly my mother, but was the only mother I had from the time I was eight years old until she died in the bombing of Thirteen. I was always so resistant with her, and she was, for the most part, patient with me. I wasn’t her daughter - Prim was - but she still tried to love me like her own. I can’t imagine how difficult I made it for her to love me by always resisting her and always telling her that she wasn’t my mother, even up until the day she died. I felt a tear fall from my eye. Agnessa gave up so much, not just for Prim, but for me, too.

_ Leaves will bow down when you walk by, _

_ And morning bells will chime... _

I thought of Peeta’s mother. Her name had been Melanie, but she was often called Mellie. Mellie Mellark had been her husband, Caseo’s second choice, Agnessa being his first. She was a bitter woman, always harsh to her sons and even to her daughter, but that didn’t stop them from loving her. She was their mother, in the end. Donnel told me how she didn’t want to leave the bakery when the bombings began due to fear, but she begged and begged her children to flee. In the end, they never left her side, except for Donnel, who survived the bombing, and we found him in the ashes of Twelve not long after. In her final moments, she proved how much she loved her children.

_ I’ll be there when you’re feeling down, _

_ To kiss away the tears that you cry... _

Effie was the mother that I had now, and I hadn’t really thought of her as a mother until long after I should have. She was the one who set the changes of my life in motion, even though she didn’t intend to. I only wish she could have been at mine and Peeta’s wedding, but she’d been imprisoned in the Capitol. I felt horrible for having never thought of her being imprisoned, having assumed that she’d be safe, being a Capitol citizen and all. I learned to love her as the mother I’d lost, and she’d learned to love me as the daughter she’d never had. She had Carolina, too, who was her husband’s blood, but I was the one who had been guided by her for so long.

_ I’ll share with you all the happiness I’ve found, _

_ A reflection of the love in your eyes... _

I smiled as I held my hand over my abdomen, feeling the slightest bit of movement inside of me. My baby was kicking, reminding me that he or she was in there growing, and suddenly, I couldn’t wait to hold my baby in my arms.

_ And I’ll sing the songs of the rainbow, _

_ A whisper of the joy that is mine... _

When I found myself alone in the house, I would hum, not really to myself, but to my baby inside of me. I was about five months along when I was seated on the couch in our living room and Peeta came home, listening to me sing an old Hebridean lullaby to the baby growing inside of me. He leaned against the doorframe and smiled at me when I met his eyes, a gentle blush forming on my cheeks. “Did you know the baby can hear your voice at twenty-four weeks?” I asked him.

The end of October brought an old Hebridean tradition called Samhain, which Cailean and I had introduced to our friends and family after the rebellion came to an end. It fell on October 31st, and watching Cailean try to teach Peeta and Haymitch to carve a jack-o-lantern into a turnip was enough to make me laugh. And something else, too. After feeling a warm sensation, I bolted inside and ran into the bathroom on the first floor, slipping out of my now soaked pants and sitting on the toilet with a sigh. Accidents could happen during pregnancy, but I certainly wasn’t expecting them to happen  _ this _ early. My baby was pressing down on my bladder, resulting in me feeling the urge to pee a lot more than usual. After that rather embarrassing incident, I made sure my bladder never got the chance to be full again. I loved this baby, but it sure made a sport out of kicking my bladder.

Haymitch was the last to find out, purely through being unobservant, and then it became a running joke to see how long we could go without him finding out. Cailean’s bet was after the baby was born, while Carolina and Effie were sure that he’d notice sooner. He found out at the Harvest Fest, when we thought he wouldn’t come but Effie ended up dragging him. The Harvest Fest fell in November, and by this point, I was six months into my pregnancy and showing every inch of it. “When the  _ hell _ were you gonna tell me I was gonna be a grandpa?” Haymitch demanded.

“ _ Whaaaat? _ You’re gonna be a grandpa? Congratulations, Haymitch!” Peeta exclaimed, faking surprise, and Haymitch punched Peeta’s shoulder in response.

“Boy, you watch it, you’re on thin ice already,” he warned him. As much as Effie was mine and Peeta’s mother, Haymitch was our father, and he  _ loved _ to take the piss out of Peeta, especially after he found out that Peeta and I were expecting a baby.

As Autumn progressed, I sat in the backyard more to watch the leaves fall and flutter down to the ground, suddenly missing the Autumn colours of District Twelve. I loved living by the ocean in Four, however, a small piece of me missed hunting, missed being out in the woods, missed the colours of the trees. I rested my hand on my now rather large abdomen and let out a sigh. I wanted my baby to learn how to hunt. “I’ll convince Daddy to take us to Twelve someday when you’re older, little one... I’ll teach you to hunt, like my father and uncle taught me. You’ll love it, the freedom of being out in the woods, the leaves crunching beneath your feet and the thrill of the chase,” I told my baby inside of me.

_ Leaves will bow down when you walk by, _

_ And morning bells will chime... _

December came and with it went the leaves of Autumn. In Four, it didn’t get so chilly, nor did it really snow much, but for one week at the end of December, around Yuletide, when the temperatures dropped lower than they ever had in Four before, it began to snow. I watched the snow through the bay window of the dining room, my hand on my abdomen, and my baby now at seven months gestation. I heard Peeta’s footsteps behind me as he entered the dining room and he pressed a cup of hot cocoa into my hands, then he switched off the light and stood behind me, the two of us watching the snow come down. His hand snaked its way around my waist and rested on my abdomen, and I placed my hand over his. We both felt a subtle movement beneath our hands.

_ I’ll walk in the rain by your side, _

_ I’ll cling to the warmth of your tiny hand... _

New Years’ came and went, and it was now 2169. The weather had warmed a little since the week of Yule, and my due date was nearing rapidly. Peeta’s birthday was coming up and I wanted to do something special for him, but now being nine months pregnant, my options were limited. I woke up on the morning of the thirteenth of February with the intention of going to Carolina and Cailean next door to ask for their help to plan a surprise party, but the moment I stood, I felt a rush of a warm liquid make its way down my leg and a subtle pressure forming in my lower back. “Oh, gosh...” I whispered, leaning against the bedside table beside me as Peeta stirred in the bed.

“Hmm... what’s the matter...” he muttered sleepily. I knew exactly what it was. I spent years bringing babies into the world and usually arrived at the mother-to-be’s home not long after what happened to me had happened to them.

“My waters broke,” I told him, suppressing a groan from the blossoming pain in my lower back. “Peeta, I’m going into labour.”

“ _ What?” _ Peeta exclaimed, fear striking him as he jumped up, getting tangled in the blankets and nearly falling out of bed before he ran to my side. “Should I call the doctor? Should I call Effie? Carolina?  _ Gale? _ ” It annoyed me just a little that he added Gale’s name to that list and I waved him off.

“Relax, you don’t have to call anyone yet. This is my first baby and first labours can take anywhere from twelve to twenty-four hours,” I hissed. “Just start a bath for me, I’d like to sit in one. And call Effie, I need her here.”

Our living room was filled by Carolina, Cailean, Haymitch, Annie, Killick, Ariel, and Finnick’s mother, Helene, by the time I got out of the bath, assisted by both Effie and Peeta. A part of me wanted to feel a little self-conscious being nude around Effie and Peeta together, but I knew that there was nothing glorious about childbirth. Soon, I would have hands stuffed up my vaginal canal checking the dilation of my cervix and I wouldn’t be wearing any underwear, only a shirt or a dress, if even that. When Effie asked if I wanted to dress after the bath, I simply waved her off and settled on crawling into bed fully naked and covered only by blankets. The doctor was called around noon, doing an internal examination and declaring that I was only two centimetres dilated. He said that he would come back at six to check again, but to call if any changes such as my contractions getting closer together happened.

Effie made me tea and brought biscuits up to me. She’d stopped wearing crazy Capitol wigs and clothes several years ago and instead, wore her dirty blonde hair in a chignon and dressed in a casual dress. She looked much more motherly that way as she sat beside me and made sure I took my tea and ate my biscuits. At six, the doctor came back only to determine that I was now four centimetres dilated, and I felt tears stinging my eyes. It was going to be a very, very long night. At ten, the doctor returned again and sent both Effie and Peeta out of the room, and in that time, Peeta had sent everyone home, not that they had far to go. Haymitch stayed on our couch while Carolina and Cailean invited Annie, Helene, Killick and Ariel to stay at their place next door.

Around eleven, the contractions got stronger and more frequent, and I groaned with the pain. “I can offer you some morphling if you would like,” the doctor suggested, but I only shook my head. After all that I went through in the war, I didn’t like the idea of not fully knowing what was going on with my body and I opted to power through the pain.

“You don’t have to be in pain, Katniss, honey. They’ll give you some morphling, you won’t feel a thing but you’ll still be in control of your body,” Peeta told me, seated beside me on the bed and holding my hand.

“Shut  _ up _ ,  _ you _ did this to me!” I hissed at him, and he retracted just a little.

“It’s all right, dear. Don’t snap at Peeta, he’s only trying to help,” Effie told me, calming me down using the motherly tone that always did the trick on me, and then she turned to Peeta. “If she doesn’t want it then don’t try and push it on her, Peeta. Our Katniss is a strong woman, you and I both know that.” He nodded, then raised my hand to his lips to press a kiss to it. His brow was furrowed in worry and his eyes were fearful and concerned. I felt my thumb rub over his own knuckles as he gave me a charming, but still concerned, smile.

At a quarter to midnight, the doctor declared that I was finally ten centimetres dilated and that it was time to push. I sat up, Peeta and Effie making sure the blanket still covered my breasts as the doctor exposed my lower legs and instructed me to spread my legs and open my hips. I couldn’t properly hear much through the pain, but Effie and Peeta each took one of my legs to help me keep them apart, and then he told me to push. My screams must have echoed through the house because I heard footsteps up the stairs and the door burst open, Haymitch stumbling into the room waving a knife around.

“Haymitch, calm  _ down _ !” Effie snapped at him, not leaving my side.

“I heard screaming! I thought-” Haymitch began, but Effie cut him off.

“Katniss is  _ giving birth _ , it’s a very painful experience for a woman! Of course there’s going to be screaming!” Effie hissed.

“Both of you, shut up!” Peeta snapped at them.

“Can we have peace, please?” the doctor demanded, and Haymitch lowered the knife and crossed the room to Effie’s side, resting a hand on my shoulder, and the doctor instructed me to push again.

“You’re doin’ great, kiddo,” Haymitch encouraged me. It took another twenty minutes of pushing, hissing, screaming, moaning, groaning and resting before I even felt the baby’s head pass through my opening and the pain of that caused me to erupt into tears of pain.

“Excellent, Mrs. Mellark, you are doing excellent. The baby is crowning,” the doctor told me. “Give us another push, now.” I pushed, feeling the baby slide through me with a little bit more difficulty now that it was finally exiting my body, and I squeezed the life out of Effie’s and Peeta’s hands as I groaned. “The baby is with us up to its forearms now, take a moment to rest and push with your next contraction.”

“You can do this, Katniss. You’re strong, and you’re brave, and you’ve gone through so much to get where you are today,” I heard Peeta tell me, feeling one of his hands brushing the hair from my sweat-drenched forehead, and he pressed his lips to it. “I love you, Katniss. You’re so strong and so incredible...” I followed the doctor’s instruction to rest and then pushed again when I felt the contraction.

“That’s it, that’s it, keep pushing! Keep pushing! The baby is almost here, keep pushing!” I felt the doctor’s hands pull the baby from inside of me and heard the cries that filled the room, and I let out the breath that I had been holding and collapsed back into the pillows behind me, panting and breathing heavily as I listened to the beautiful sounds of my baby’s cries filling the room. I lifted my head to try and catch a glimpse as Peeta and Effie lowered my legs and all watched as the doctor clamped and cut the umbilical cord and wrapped our newborn little baby into a warm, comfortable little bundle. “Congratulations, Mrs. Mellark. You’ve got a daughter,” said the doctor with a smile, and he passed the baby to Effie, who cooed over her as she passed the baby to me.

_ I’ll do anything to help you understand, _

_ And I’ll love you more than anybody can... _

I held my little girl against my chest for the first time, covered in amniotic fluid and blood, but I didn’t care. I cried tears of joy as I looked down into her beautiful little face and pressed my lips to her tiny little head, where wisps of blonde hair were growing. “A little girl...” I muttered as I looked into her face. Her eyes were closed, but she looked just like Peeta. She had his nose, his facial structure, his eye shape, his mouth and even his hair, and I looked up at my husband and the father of my little girl, raising a hand to brush a piece of curly blonde hair from his eyes. “She looks just like you...” He was smiling as he met my eyes, and then looked into the face of our beautiful daughter, gently pressing his lips to her brow. “This blood is beautiful,” I whispered to my husband as we both looked into the beautiful face of our newborn daughter. “It’s nothing like the blood we know...”

“Yes, it is... and so is she...” Peeta muttered, a tear rolling down his cheek. I happened to glance up at the clock on the wall, noticing that it was now well past midnight, and I smiled.

“Happy birthday, to both of you,” I whispered to Peeta, and he smiled again. My daughter and my husband shared a birthday. He smiled at me and then brought his lips to mine to kiss me.

“Thank you... this is the best gift you could have ever possibly given me,” he said to me joyously.

Once everything was settled and cleaned up, it was Peeta’s turn to hold our little girl. He’d taken off his shirt and held her against his chest after I told him that babies loved skin-to-skin contact and I was leaned up against him, still nude except for a very large and thick pair of padded underwear (if you think things become glorious after the baby is born, you’d be incorrect. Once a baby is born, the body has to shed all of the uterine lining that kept the baby safe, which meant weeks of heavy bleeding). My right arm was around his shoulders and my left cradled our baby in his arms, and the gentle breeze from the sea blew in through the open window. It was a relatively mild night, so it wasn’t too cold, and I didn’t bother pulling the blanket up over my shoulders and chest. I was perfectly warm pressed against my husband as he cradled our daughter. It had been several hours since she was born, and we sat in silence taking turns cradling her. I’d fed her a couple of hours before, and Peeta had changed her first diaper, and now we sat as we listened to the sounds of the waves while we held our little girl.

The breeze blew in, and I heard the first whistles of the morning larks that lived in the trees outside. The song was beautiful, and I glanced up at the window to find the songbird perched on our windowsill singing its song. Peeta glanced up, too, and he smiled gently.

_ And the wind will whisper your name to me, _

_ Little birds will sing along in time... _

“We should call her ‘Lark’,” I said suddenly, watching the songbird, and then I locked eyes with Peeta.

“I thought you didn’t like that name,” he asked me, and I shrugged.

“A little bird told me that she’s meant to have it,” I told him, and he smiled as he looked down at our little girl, fast asleep in his arms.

“Hello, little Lark... Lark Meadow Mellark,” he’d whispered to his little girl. The wind kicked up again and the songbird flew away, and a leaf fluttered in through the open window in its place.

_ The leaves will bow down when you walk by... _

It was now six in the morning. Peeta handed off little Lark to me and got up to pick up the green oil lamp that was sitting on the floor in the corner of the room beside a red one. He set it in the window, then struck a match and lit it, the lamp giving off a green glow from our window. It was common in Four for the men, who were sailors, to be off at sea when their wives gave birth, so a system was developed. A light would be placed in the window of the home - green for a girl, red for a boy. It stuck even if the father wasn’t at sea and became a tradition. Off in the distance, I heard the chimes of a bell that were only rung when a baby in Four had been born. It rang six times, three chimes per baby that was born that night, meaning that somewhere in Four, there was another baby that had been born. Peeta sat back down beside me, enveloping me in his strong arms and kissing the side of my head.

“And morning bells will chime,” I whispered.


End file.
